The Nature of His Love by Jason Tax (summer reading list .txt) 📖

behind each and every attribute. It also doesn’t mean that everything that’s been taught of His nature currently is wrong. Besides the bad teachings, I’ve also heard some really truthful and amazing teachings of the nature of God as well. I believe knowing God’s attributes in His love though will help us more rightly know our Father’s heart of love, while also helping clear up many of the common misperceptions of God that are running rampant in the church today. I’ll give you one example of many more in this book:

Love is Merciful

Let’s look at God’s mercy.

Psalm 51:1 NIV “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love;”

Mercifulness is an attribute of God’s love. God has mercy on us according to His heart of unfailing love for us. The definition of mercy to many is that it means: to relent a deserved punishment, or to forgive someone’s debt. God’s mercy has been viewed by some in the church as meaning that we need to cry out, and beg for forgiveness, so that the great almighty God might relent from punishing us for our many, many sins. As if God was saying, “Ahh you’re lucky I’ll forgive you guys today, cause I’m in a good mood and you cried out long enough. But don’t test My patience, or next time I might have to punish you for all your many, many sins.”
Agape love (God’s love) is an unconditional love that always seeks the highest goodwill of another, without requiring anything in return. And not only does it not require anything in return, but even seeks the absolute best for all people, including its greatest enemies. That’s why Jesus said:

Matthew 5:44-45: “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, (45) that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes the sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”
Paul said in Rom. 5:8 “While we were still sinners Christ died for us.”

Mercy defined and understood in the context of the agape love of God is so much different. God loves us sooo much that even when we were at our worst, and hated Him the most, He sent Jesus to die for us. He did this so that He could forgive us of all sin, and remove all of our punishment the moment we accept Him. In fact He did that before every person on the earth today was even born! Then His love took it even further when God decided that it wasn’t enough to just forgive us, and relent our punishment, but He loves us so much that He even forgets all our sins the moment we accept Him, as if none of them ever even happened (Heb. 8:14)!! Wow! It’s like God saying, “Hey don’t worry about it, I forgive you, and not only do I forgive you, in fact I don’t even remember you ever doing that. I love you so much I could never see you doing anything wrong, because you’re made in My image, and are as righteous as I am (2 Cor. 5:21 and 1 John 3:9). And I would never want anything to stand between My love for you, so lets just forget about it…What were we talking about again? Oh yeah, how great you are in My love…”
He’s such a good Father! See God doesn’t want to just forgive a deserved punishment, His love desires to forget that there was ever any wrongs done at all, and to only think about all the good things He placed in us. That’s why God forgets all our sins, and relents all our deserved punishment, the moment we ask forgiveness! You ever hear the phrase “love is blind.” That’s because when you’re truly in love with someone it causes you to see past all the faults and weaknesses of the person as if they aren’t even there. That’s the way God loves us. He sees past all our faults, weaknesses, and sins, and instead chooses to constantly be infatuated with all the goodness that He placed in us! What a great God! Also the Bible says that God delights in showing mercy (Micah 7:18). Which means that it brings joy and delight to God’s being whenever He has the opportunity to show mercy to His beloved children. There’s no more reason to fear coming to God for forgiveness, because He delights in showing His merciful love to us! Now that sounds a little bit more like mercy with the foundation of God’s agape love!

Love is All in God

There is much more that I could say about God’s mercifulness, and there are many more attributes yet to cover, but for now I want to share some more Scriptures to help show that all of God’s attributes really are found in His love:

Eph. 3:17-19 “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, (18) may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height-- (19) to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

So according to this passage we are to be rooted and grounded in love. That word grounded in the Greek means “founded”. Which means the foundation (or root source) of all that we are and do is God’s love! Wow! And this is so that we may be able to comprehend (understand) the width and length and depth and height of God’s love, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God. Meaning that we must first be founded in God’s love, and only then can we begin to understand the supreme vastness of God’s love, because His love is the measuring line for the height, width, depth, and length of all that He is! Which also means that we can only be filled with the measure of God's fullness, that we are filled to the measure of the fullness of His love!! Because everything that God is, is found inside of His love!! Woohoo! Thank You Jesus, Father, Holy Spirit for how immensely incredible and spectacular Your love is!!!
Here’s another Scripture:

Phil. 1:9-11 NIV “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, (10) so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, (11) filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ-- to the glory and praise of God.”

This passage reveals that the knowledge and insight of God’s love is the key to be able to discern what is best, be pure and blameless until the day of Christ (without sin), and be filled with the righteousness of Christ. Which means knowledge, righteousness, purity, discernment, and blamelessness are all fueled by, and found in love! It also means that the key to overcoming sin is the love of God!
And another:

Col. 3:12-14 NIV “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. (13) Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. (14) And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” (Boldness added)

Here is a list of some of God’s attributes that we are to carry and walk in as believers. If you notice, almost all of those attributes we saw earlier in 1 Cor. 13 being defined as love. At the end Paul says that over them all we need to walk in love, because love is what binds them all together in perfection. Love is God’s gloriously binding “glue” that keeps every other part of Himself together and working perfectly! Haha.
Here’s some good ones:

Matt. 22:35-40 “Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, 36 'Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?’ (37) Jesus said to him, “'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.’"
Gal. 5:14 “The entire law is summed up in a single command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Rom. 13:10 “Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
1 Tim. 1:5 “Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith.”

Wow! So the greatest commands of the law is to love! Not only that, but the purpose of the entire law, the prophets, and every other command of God is: LOVE! Which is even more astoundingly great proof that all of God’s attributes are found inside of His love! If God’s attributes were separated from each other, then Jesus would not be able to say that the entire law is summed up by love. If righteousness, peace, wisdom, mercy, justice, and the other attributes of God were found outside of His love, then it would take more than just love to fulfill all the commandments of God. But because all of God’s attributes are found inside of His love, by walking in love we will fulfill everything that God wants us to be and do!
Almost there:

1 Cor. 16:14 “Let all that you do be done with love.”

Everything we do should always be done with love, and nothing we do should ever be done without it. It’s as if we are in an eternal tango with love, and are to be overflowing expressions of that love at all times. Every work of God is a work of His love!
Last one:

1 Cor. 8:1 “Now concerning the eating of things offered to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.”

Knowledge outside of love will puff a person up, and make them proud. Knowledge founded and perfected in God’s love will always edify, or build people up. It is the knowledge of God’s love that builds us up into His image! Even knowledge outside of love can actually cause more harm than good. No wonder why there’s so much division in the family and church of God today. Too many are building their life on doctrines of knowledge without love, instead of letting God’s unconditional agape love be the supreme foundation of all that we do together as one family in Christ!
There are many more revelations, experiences, and Scriptures to go through, but for now lets do a quick summary of some of the main points so far: Love is the foundation, root, height, width, length, depth, perfection, bond, motivation, and fullness of all that God is. It is also only through love that we will be able to understand His attributes, knowledge, be pure, walk blamelessly, discern what is best, edify one another, have faith, have hope, trust God, be humble, fulfill the law, and so much more! Wow!! Also God’s nature is not love, joy, peace, vengeance, wisdom, etc, as separate attributes. That kind of thinking can view God’s attributes as being more individually separated, and in something like a straight line. (Though there are many other views that people